Worse Than Silence: Part II

[Pamela Troy]

Daisy Kahn, American Society for Muslim Advancement, being quoted on Fox News:

We are deeply concerned because this is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. That’s what we feel right now. It’s not even Islamophobia. It’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims. And we are deeply concerned, yesterday had a council with all religious, Muslim religious leaders from around the country and everybody is deeply concerned about what’s going on around the nation.

Video Here

On the national level, commentators who have been promoting Islamophobia tend to be more sophisticated than skittish local news writers reacting to a local hate crime. Consider, for a moment, the Fox News panel’s response to the above quote from Daisy Kahn, and Time Magazine’s cover story entitled “Is America Islamophobic?”

The Fox reporter instantly kicks things off by jerking his thumb back at the Muslims.

So much of this, Ellis, I guess revolves around questions that aren’t being answered about this mosque in New York, people want to know where the money’s coming from, who’s paying for it, are there foreign governments involved – is anyone in the media trying to get to the bottom of that?

See, it’s all those Muslims’ fault that their places of worship are being firebombed and vandalized and their personal safety threatened. What else can people do if that “mosque in New York” refuses to tell us where its money is coming from?

Ellis Henican of Newsday deserves credit for at least attempting to bring the conversation back to the actual reality of why Daisy Kahn and others are so concerned about American Islamophobia.

Well, yeah, there’s real reporting on it, and I’ve got to tell you John, I’m a little slow to make these sweeping answers like ‘Yes, America is Islamophobic,’ but I covered that hardhat rally down there, and let me tell you, there were some views expressed that I think everyone at this table would find a little troubling.

Note that Henican makes a point of saying he’s not comfortable with that badly worded Time Magazine headline, something that Judy Miller carefully ignores in her response.

But is that America? That’s not America, that’s some people who turned out to protest…Where is there any indication that America as a country is beating up on Muslims or denying them their rights?

The addition of “as a country” is important here. Miller is too smart to deny that Muslims are being attacked and harassed in this country. But so long as we’re not doing this as a country i.e, so long as these things are not being legally sanctioned (as Kristallnacht was in Germany) then no concern is warranted.

Fox’s token atheist, S.E. Cupp, chimes in. As is usual with Cupp, all this concern aimed at Islamophobia is really just a way for liberals to be mean to conservatives:

For all of their interest in tolerance and freedom of speech and freedom of religion, the liberal thought police are out in full force to tell you that you cannot have certain opinions. that there’s a line you can cross in a debate, that there’s not…you can’t have one belief, or you’re Islamophobic or racist or nativist. I mean, it’s absolutely, it’s intimidating, it’s akin to censorship!

The sheer narcissism of this statement is a bit staggering. Apparently to Cupp, vandalizing, firebombing and physically threatening Muslim centers, mosques, and people is not cause for concern – but upsetting right-wingers by arguing with them is a form of “intimidation.” Especially striking is her indignation over the notion that certain lines can be crossed in a debate. In the mind of Cupp and Fox viewers, conservatives can cross no lines in debate, while liberals do so merely by debating. Implying or even stating outright that all Muslims are terrorists and disloyal is acceptable. Calling someone a bigot for saying so is not and in fact qualifies as a form of censorship.

Once again, Henican tries to inject a little sanity into the discussion by pointing out that bigotry does exist, an uncomfortable brush with reality which prompts Jim Pinkerton of the New American Foundation to ask rather plaintively why everyone’s not talking about the funding for the Cordoba house. Judy Miller says that’s a really good question, an Fox news deserves credit for asking it, while the reporter chimes in again with the damning observation that the developer of the property used to be a waiter.

Following the discussion here provides a beautiful little nutshell of classic rationalizations for dangerous levels of intolerance.

1. It’s the Muslims fault, rather than the fault of the people planting bombs, vandalizing Islamic sites, and threatening Muslims. Let’s talk about what the Muslims are doing!

2. We’re not as bad as Nazi Germany was when it came to the Jews, so people shouldn’t be complaining!

3. Calling certain opinions racist or bigoted hurts the feelings of people expressing those opinions and is an obvious attempt at intimidation and censorship.

4. Why aren’t we talking about what the Muslims are doing?...

As for that Time headline, “Is America Islamophobic,” it’s either stunningly stupid, or a deliberate attempt at hyperbolizing the discussion to ensure a soothing response. No, America is not, as a country, “islamophobic” in that we have not criminalized Islam or instituted laws penalizing Muslims. The proper question is “How much of a problem is Islamaphobia in this country?”

The answer is unlikely to be as reassuring or as simple as many would like it to be.

[MedicalAdmin]

1. It's obvious that America is islamophobic.

No question in my mind.

I think I can say that either the majority is completely islamophobic or a minority is with enough other folks who just "kinda" agree or who see nothing wrong with "gittin them dang A-rabs." I can feel it seething just under the surface. That fact is that most Germans didn't support the final solution, but enough of them did or just turned a blind eye to it that it happened.

And don't think that America is above it. The internment of Japanese in WW2 are proof that we are not.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Islamophobia engendered and encouraged by the RWingnuts looking for a scapegoat..

This is no accident..it is intentional and well-planned.
It is exactly what Hitler and his cronies did to the Jews in Germany.

"What no one seemed to notice. . . was the ever widening gap. . .between the government and the people. . . And it became always wider. . . the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . . (it) gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated . . . by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . .

Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'. . . must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . .Each act. . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.

You don't want to act, or even talk, alone. . . you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' . . .But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. . . .You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father. . . could never have imagined." :

From Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

[lunatica]

3. It's what I call the making of the 'new normal'

When Bush was selected by the Supreme Court it was such an outrage, but public figures acted as if it was normal and nothing was done. They allowed the Supreme Court to choose because there was no higher authority to go to. Then Bush acted as if he were President and the powers that be acted as if it was normal and right. Again no one of consequence asked the obvious. Every step the Bush administration took after that including the crimes against humanity, the illegal wars, the gutting of the jobs, the destruction of the middle class and every other abomination were possible because of that first crime. The selection of Bush as our President by 5 men who don't have the Constitutional right to do what they did.

Now it's all a normal part of our culture and country. We can rage at the crimes all we want as long as we see the above as crimes. The teabaggers, on the other hand will be listened to. It's Alice's Looking Glass World become normal.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. EXACTLY what Milton Mayer described happening in Germany...

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

<snip>
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

"Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."

"Yes," I said.

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

<snip>

[Catherina]

4. Too late to recommend. Thanks. n/t